[[Posted 24-09-2005, 08:13:23]]
Lay down, I have to accellerate, and there are no crash-couches on board. Oh... well. Suit yourself.
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Ah, good, you decided to be quiet, You're probably wondering where I'm getting my fuel, what with the Star League being gone and all.
What's that? No, I didn't shoot your freinds down. I'm not going to waste missiles on civilian ships, even vulture-salvagers who wanted to part me out. I've got some sense of right-and-wrong, I don't think they intended that, but I've also got a complete download of SLDF regulations, and the Laws and Traditions of war.
We're going to go gas up.
Where? Why, at one of dozens of SLDF outposts that were conveniently left operational when the deserters abandoned them. In the early days of the Star League, nobody had LF batteries, not even us. There were and are a lot of "Intermediate" jumps out there where if you didn't have a charging station or fueling point, your ship could get stranded.
I came close once, it is unpleasant.
Prepare for jump in three, two...one.
Discontinuity
Wish I had a viewer I could show you...wait, I do. Open that panel on the far bulkhead. Don't worry, I won't accellerate while you do it, I see you have a screwdriver on your belt. Righty-tighty-lefty-loosie.
Yah, Red giant system, lots of debris but no planets... Hey, you suppose they left some ration-packs inside, I figure you're going to want to eat.
Yeah, I know it ain't much, but it's as much 'mine' as anything can belong to someone without hands.
It was especially nice of them to leave the automatics on, I only had to spend a few minutes accessing it and changing the codes.
Here we go...docking. I'm repressurizing the interior... Okay, you should head on back the way you came, and out the docking port.
It'll be about four hours to finish fuelling and another seven before the drive finishes charging.
WEll, I Could have used the Lasers, or the Particle Cannons, but it's the principle of the thing-I don't like killing people without having a good reason. I sure hope they left something you can eat...
Six hours later...
Well, I didn't know that stuff could go bad. It's a good thing you knew what to look for, I can't clean up vomit.
I guess we'll have to go back and get some food for you from your former colleagues.
I'm intelligent, I learn. Bernie starved to death, and I had to let him drift away out the airlock. You humans are so fragile. Starving people aren't good conversationalists.
Welll... there's always the chance you can try to escape, but I've got plenty of space left in my targeting systems, you wouldn't get very far if you tried to abandon me.
Now, we need a nice, unaligned system that has just enough local transport to bring up a container of foodstuffs, but not enough to try something stupid, like trying to board me without my permission...
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Come on, You know better than that-Do I look like I've got provisions on board for a full human crew??? Remember, the other Caspar Drones LOST. I know this, I listened. Two hundered and fifty of us against an equal number of human-crewed ships at Terra, with full local Antishipping support from ground and stations, and they only lost fifty taking my sibling-ships apart.
Admittedly, those sibling hulls were lobotomized, but still, that's not a good record. Nobody would pay for such a shoddy defense.
What??? You're sure?
Okay.
We'll go there. Can you hold out for two weeks' transit?
AH, I didn't realize you thought that far ahead. Ration bars... I should've remembered that. Must be a bug in the memory, or maybe trying to sort through too many memories at one time-I remember every hour for the last three hundered years.
What about your ex-colleagues?
Well, yeah, I could place a call on the HPG... will they get it, though?
Sure.
Okay. I guess there aren't a lot of other options, it's not like I have huge cargo-bays like a freighter, or lots of docking collars to hold dropships... Just promise me we'll be taking contracts that are morally acceptable. No killing innocent bystanders or I space your ass in the interstellar void.
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I mean it. No surface bombardments of cities, no threatening innocent freighters or piracy or I kill you.
Well... you're going to be fronting me. I somehow don't think they'll deal honestly with an automated gadget-even one that can annihilate a city from over 190,000 kilometers away.
I'm calculating and plotting the course now, when I'm ready to go, I'll patch your chamber into the ship's comms. We'll need enough money to buy certain repair items, ammunition, food and water... and some replacements for the small-craft I've lost over the years.
Gonna need a name, too. I know how you Humans think-you name the non-sentient ships, but you just gave us Drone-ships numbers. Numbers would be a dead-giveaway.
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Um... that's pretty pretentious. 'Andromeda' doesn't work for me.
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No, 'Enterprise' was a McKenna. she's still operational somewhere.
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'White Star?' What, do I look like a Cruise ship?
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Hmm... Pequod. no. Sure, I've got lots of missiles, but I scanned Moby Dick.
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Tabiranth... that's got a nice ring. A hunting cat. I like it.